Reportage!

I want to read Karen Traviss' books.

Traviss, of course, is a science-fiction author with two books under her belt as well as a movie tie-in. Prior to being published, she was also a reporter, a spin-doctor and now a blogger. Because of this, she has good insights on the differences (and similarities) between the traditional and the new media. See her post here:

I love all this notion of respectability and truth. Let me break ranks and tell you that a certain proportion of what gets printed or broadcast is bollocks and not without its own partisan leanings. (I bet you're glad you were sitting down when I revealed that.) That the same is true of blogs is, to say the least, bleedin' obvious...

...As for the accusation that some bloggers are clearly mouthpieces for some organisation or other - when was the real media ever free from that taint? Most journos are pretty honest individuals, but we'd be delusional if we tried to pretend we felt that our paymasters would run any story we came up with, or that some of our colleagues would be free to attack the party their paper supports. All media outlets have their stance, subtle or otherwise.

So true.

My experience as internet editor here obviously is not as vast as hers but I can relate, especially after hearing the stories downstairs in the print department. Likewise, I still remember what a local blogging community put Joey through after he decided to introduce blogging in our rival's website.

Moreover, she says something I can absolutely relate, especially on sources for reports:

Forgive my venom about academics like Chomsky pontificating on the media, but a certain well known media academic spent a few weeks in our newsroom and found that all his theories about media bias were based on garbage. He had never actually asked journos why they did what they did. He assumed one thing, based on his own external observations and his own biases, and he was utterly wrong. We laughed ourselves sick. I wish I'd taped some of the conversations, but they were along the lines of:

Academic: "You always interview that MP. This shows a subconscious bias towards X party. Journalists tend to support party X."

Hack: "Er...no, he's the only MP who'll front up at that time of the morning at studio X. So we call him first."

And there were many more like that. He simply didn't factor in the logistics of news, which dominate the agenda. He who is available gets his word in first.

Ha! Got that right.

The bad news is that aside from the movie tie-in, Traviss' books still aren't available here. The good news is that I'm still under the book moratorium (in a silver lining way).